140 managers from around the world paint as a group
An International Masterpiece
Driving through the gates of the Châteauform' Campus de Cély, there was no doubt in our minds why our client had booked this venue to hold their team building seminar. With the sun shining in our faces we pulled up to this beautiful estate which combines the authenticity of stone and the modernity of large glass roofs, set in the middle of a 136-acre golf course.
Last month we were called in to run a workshop for 140 managers from a family-run French group with strong local connections and a focus on the future. These managers were from all around the world as this international group has a presence in almost 110 countries!
It would be a challenge to run a workshop in English with 140 participants from all around the world, but the team was up for it! Half of the APW team came from the UK, the rest from Paris. Two of us are Canadian, one is French and two are English - an international team for an international workshop!
Working late into the night to set up the room before the big day, our stress levels were at maximum with the anticipation of all these people in just one huge room. After an amazing meal at the in-house restaurant we all made our way to our rooms to get a good night's sleep before the big day. It would transpire the next morning that most of the participants did not choose the early night option, but the cocktail making masterclass instead!
Facilitating this many people is never easy and we really didn’t want anyone to get lost in the crowd. We thought about what we could do differently to make sure that everyone felt involved when they intervened on the big canvases. After going through the work of all our “go-to” action painters, we decided to go for a Alechinsky type border around the canvas and to get everyone to sign their names inside the border “à la” Jonone. When prepping the three big canvases we made up a masking tape border about ten centimetres from all four sides. Before all the participants “stamped” their small individual canvases in the last stage of the workshop we asked them to grab a big marker pen and sign all over the border. This way, even if their small canvases didn’t show up as much as they wanted or if they felt that their ideas hadn’t been heard, at least everyone had their name on the final artwork.
It worked a treat! Firstly it looked fab and, secondly, everybody loved it! At first they thought they only had to write their names once, but when we told them they had to fill the whole border, leaving no white space they all really went for it! It looked really fancy. We all felt quite proud of having that idea and taking the time to come up with something different.
When the workshop was done and we put the three big canvases together it looked amazing and all the participants were very proud. All over the room you could overhear oohs and ahhs of satisfaction in different languages: Spanish, French, English, Arabic, Italian… In all honesty, we really worried about this workshop; it was for so many people from so many different cultures. In the end it was probably one of the best ones we’ve ever done.
The CEO of the company was so happy with the result that he decided to have 350 reproductions of the triptych made for their offices all over the world.
Now that’s a good job done!
